2 Potential Disadvantages of Accepting Guest Posts at Your Blog

The internet is flooded with the advantages of accepting guest posts on your blog: It helps to keep your blog moving on with the incoming flux of dynamic new content, your blog gains popularity, and it helps you to develop good relationships with the fellow guest bloggers !

As a matter of fact, where there are advantages, the disadvantages do follow back to complement them :P ... Here, by the medium of this post, I am not trying to discourage you from accepting guest posts on your blog, rather I am trying to reveal the possibly ugly side of accepting guest posts at your blog (all from my own personal experiences...)

Here are the two potential disadvantages:

1. You might become heavily dependent on guest bloggers

No doubt, guest posts are great for helping you to keep your blog updated with fresh content, but guest blogging should definitely not hinder your ability to write for your own blog. Remember, it's YOUR blog and it was your own writing style only that attracted those worldwide visitors to your blog. Remember Darren Rowse at problogger.net ? Nearly 10 high quality guest posts are published at problogger.net every single week. In spite of this huge incoming flux of guest posts, Mr. ProBlogger still continues to publish his own content there. Why? Because he knows that it is his unique writing style only that drives millions of worldwide visitors to problogger every single month!

2. Consistent threat of plagiarism in the published posts

You receive a grand guest submission and you immediately decide to publish it on your blog (obviously after checking for uniqueness and any possible plagiarism). But your job definitely does not end here. By publishing every single guest post on your blog, you are adding an extra workload for yourself. And that workload is to regularly check that the published guest articles are not republished anywhere on the web by your dear guest bloggers.

This happened with me a while back when a guest blogger after getting his article published on my blog, reproduced the whole content on several other websites without even bothering to notify me. I immediately took his article off my website and when I dropped him an email about the same, he simply replied: "actually I do not care."

What is your experience with guest blogging at your website ? Do share it with us in your comments below.

source - SocialMediaToday

How To Add Image To Every Post On Your Blogger Blog

Would you like add image or signature to every blog post in blogger blog? This post will show you how to do it in just a few easy steps! :)

To add a signature or image, first, you need to have image or signature and upload it somewhere like Flicker, photobucket or in your FTP. Then follow the below steps..

1. Go to your blog inside the Blogger Dashboard and click on design.

2. Then click the Edit HTML button.

3. Check the Expand Widget Template box.

4. Find by Click CTRL-F and copy and paste the line below in the search box to search for it in your code.

post-footer-line post-footer-line-1

You will get:

<div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"></div>

4. Under that line, paste the below code and change IMAGE URL to the url address of your signature image (it’s the Direct Link of your image).

<img alt='flower' src='http://www.imagesource.com/flower.jpg' style='border: 0;'/>

5. If you want to create hyperlink (clickable) for this image, then paste the below code and change both src & href url of yours.

<a href=’http://www.xyz.com/flowers’><img alt=’flower’ src=’http://www.imagesource.com/flower.jpg’ style=’border: 0;’/></a>

You are done!

Source:sociablweb

How To Get More Out Of LinkedIn

Having been launched in 2003, the professional social networking community of LinkedIn has assisted current and future workers with their chosen path in a modern social medium . The website has been known as Facebook for professionals, in that users have the capability to connect and stay in touch with others just like Facebook, but the focus is past experience and skills in a field of work or study. The website that focuses on this particular niche of networking is utilized by more than 100 million people (130 million as of January 2012) and the community continues to grow.

Perhaps you have recently graduated from college, or are looking for a new job. You know how arduous of a task it can be in general just to get a prospective employer’s attention to turn in your direction. Using career sites like Monster, Dice and Career Builder can provide some potential promise, but the problem that I personally had during my search was how condensed and unpromising the leads are.

You can put your resume up on the site, but your information appears to be uniform along with all of the thousands of others, and there really is no guarantee that your resume will get the time of day. This lack of promise only becomes further accentuated with the now infamous bit of information that employers spend an average of six seconds looking at your resume. That is not to say that the resume is completely obsolete, of course you need one, but this is the age of being connected online, and your presence needs to be visible. More employers are looking at your LinkedIn to see what you know, and perhaps just as important, WHO you know.

So while LinkedIn is an essential tool, it is necessary to be scrupulous in the manner that you exhibit yourself on the site. These are some points to consider for you to touch up your page, or as you are building one up today.

1. It’s Not A Resume

One pattern I notice on a lot of LinkedIn profiles is how some users (most of them my age and not too far out of college) treat their page like their resume. All this does is give you the same presence as you would have on any of those job sites, and you won’t stick out immediately. There’s nothing wrong with having this resume-influenced information, but don’t sound so mechanical about it. LinkedIn offers you the chance to reveal your philosophy and values that you have gained from your past experience. Employers like LinkedIn because they have a chance to learn about your character and personality before they meet with you for the interview. Show them not just what you know how to do, but why you love what you do.

2. Get a Picture

You have great content on your page, and it looks like you have a lot of established connections that enhance your credibility as a future employee. But what do you look like? This has nothing to do with aesthetic value as a person, but rather, the picture provides more personality on your LinkedIn. It’s a little disconcerting seeing a profile with just that gray and white silhouette default photo. You wouldn’t walk into an interview with a mask on, would you? Upload a recent high-quality photo that makes a good impression, just as you would face-to-face.

3. Don’t Make Anyone Guess

When explaining your experience, make it to the point, and put all the good stuff on there that the resume tends to prohibit. Being too wordy is no good, unless what you are saying is extremely valuable. Employers want to learn about you, but may not necessarily want your entire collegiate or past professional biography. There is that pragmatic approach that states “less is more.” This certainly applies to the profile as well. Yes, this sounds all too similar to the fixed rules of resume writing, but keep in mind what I said in the first point. You have more liberty in what you can say on your LinkedIn, but just watch how much you’re putting on there.

4. Get A Recommendation

A pivotal advantage of having LinkedIn is that a recommendation can be written for you by someone who can attest to your claims of achievements. This is an extremely powerful facet that you can have on your profile page. Perhaps it’s a professor whose class you flourished in, or a high up co-worker from your previous job, but find someone who has the credibility in the industry you’re trying to enter, and have them speak of all the great qualities about you. The more that there is to back up your word, the more attention you’re going to get.

5. It’s All in the Title

This is bit of a more sensitive point to make, but it is indeed very crucial when someone sees you in a list of LinkedIn candidates. Make sure that your title is relevant to the industry that you are trying to enter. Don’t make your title what your summer job is, or worse, saying that you’re unemployed. A waitress at the local restaurant or “waiting for that call” (something I have seen painfully more than once) as your title will serve you no positive outcome. If you’re a graduate looking for a job, then say that you’re a graduate in the major you chose from the college you went to. Or, if you had a good internship somewhere, then make that your past title. It is possible to make yourself sound good even if you currently are without a position. You know your skills, so make it clear.

original source>>

How To Gain More Blog Traction With Less Effort

The average blogger spends around 3 hours on getting his article read. Recent studies from blog polls show that the outcome is about 40-80 visitors a day.

So, how can you create more traffic for your blog, without wasting critical time you could use for creating good content?

In this article i will give you some tips and tweaks that help you get more traction with less effort.

1. Don't prostitute for views

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_likes

We could also call this the “Don't be angry at friends that don't like to read your articles” rule.

Everyone has this one friend who completely ignores your social media activity.

This doesn't mean he/she doesn't like you, it just means that a given topic might not be that interesting to him/her or just there's just no time to engage in it. So, don't make reading your articles a favor, find the people who appreciate your writing.

If you want to attract a certain group of readers, write something they care about and then share it with them.

2. Link building is dead

Back in the old days setting links on your website created huge traffic on your blog. This way of SEO is dead. Since the new Google penguin update (release April 24th) it seems like Google doesn't care that much about link velocity any more. They are now confident enough to prefer good written content on certain topics to articles with a lot of interlinkage. This is something many SEO people in my surrounding noticed when their SEO businesses started struggling last month.

There is no need for link spreading anymore, being particular about what and where to spread matters again. So stop the link spamming.

3. Get your articles on Newsgrape

If promoting your content consumes so much time, why not let somebody else do the job for you?

The Newsgrape platform has a wordpress plugin to automatically sync your content with a large community without having duplicate content issues.

What happens with your article:

1. Newsgrape connects your articles with similar ones. Meaning: If somebody reads a topic connected to yours, they will see your article pop up at “related articles”. Cool about that: They are more likely to be genuinely interested and appreciative of what you have to say.

2.

Newsgrape informs readers with certain interests that articles have been written about those given topics. This means, if you write something of popular interest, you have the chance of attracting over 5000 currently active readers on the site.

4. Automate your social media appereance

Its good to have a constant information flow about your website going on out there. But don't waste every single day on setting up new facebook and twitter updates - use tools to automate your appearance. Of course there are thousands of plugins for wordpress, but i will give you two powerful tools you can use with any blog:

Twitterfeed  - is the most automated system to do so. It creates twitter, LinkedIn and facebook updates by crawling your feeds. You can customize your updates a lot, for example how often and how many articles it should publish and define prefix/suffix etc.

Buffer - You have a productive week ahead of you? Fill your Buffer with twenty to forty updates, define the frequency and you are set to go.

Of course you can connect your social media accounts with Newsgrape as well.

To wrap it up

Don't prostitute, no SEO bulls%*&, connect with distributors and last but not least automate your social media appearance.

original post>>

Best Wordpress Advertising Management Plugins

WordPress blogging platform is in demand because of easy to monetized through advertising. Whether you use pay-per-click advertising, affiliate marketing, or your own system, there are many ways you can generate revenue from a WordPress blog. There are many ways to generate revenue from Wordpress blog like Google adsense or affiliate marketing.

Wordpress also allows for the use of plugins that can make easily implementation and management of your advertising placement without editing your code manually.  Here is the list best WordPress ad managing plugins that can successfully generate revenue from your website.

Ad Manager

Light, and at the same time advanced advertisement manager. Provides you the ability to select context conditions for displaying ads, like page location / location index / page or user class.

Simple Ads Manager

Simple Ads Manager is easy to use plugin providing a flexible logic of displaying advertisements.

Features

• Flexible logic of advertisements rotation based on defined weight of each advertisement in group (Ads Place)
• Custom default ad for each Ads Place
• Codes of Google Double-click for Publishers (DFP) supports
• More flexibility of displaying ads by using Ads Zone selector
• Allowed types of ad's codes are HTML, javascript, PHP
• Outputting ads as widget
• Outputting ads as shortcodes in any place of single post/page content
• Outputting ads in any place of theme template using functions
• Customizable outputting ads as block of ads
• Automatic outputting ads in single post/page if allowed
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements by types of page
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post/page by post/page ID (IDs)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post page or category archive page by category (categories)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post page or author archive page by author (authors)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post page or tag archive page by tag (tags)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on custom type single post page or custom type archive page by Custom Type (Types)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post/page by post/page ID (IDs)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post page or category archive page by category (categories)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post page or author archive page by author (authors)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post page or tag archive page by tag (tags)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on custom type single post page or custom type archive page by Custom Type (Types)
• Schedule of displaying each advertisment if allowed
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements by hits
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements by clicks
• Statistics of hits
• Statistics of clicks (your own advertisment image mode)
• Customizable accuracy of bots and crawlers detection
• Counting revenue from ads placement, display ads and clicks on advertisements

Ads Manager WP/BB

Use this plugin to quickly and easily insert Any Ad code Unit to your posts and BuddyPress sections including Forum topics.

Ad Code Manager

Ad Code Manager gives non-developers an interface in the WordPress admin for configuring your complex set of ad codes.

Some code-level configuration is necessary to setup Ad Code Manager. Ad tags must be added (via do_action) to your theme's template files where you'd like ads to appear. Alternatively, you can incorporate ad tags into your website with our widget and our shortcode.

Also, a common set of parameters must be defined for your ad provider. This includes the tag IDs used by your template, the default URL for your ad provider, and the default HTML surrounding that URL.

Once this configuration is in place, the Ad Code Manager admin interface will allow you to add new ad codes, modify the parameters for your script URL, and define conditionals to determine when the ad code appears. Conditionals are core WordPress functions like is_page(), is_category(), or your own custom functions that evaluate certain expression and then return true or false.

Ad Code Manager currently works with Doubleclick for Publishers by default. However, all logic is abstracted which means that you can configure ACM for any ad provider relatively easy. Check providers/doubleclick-for-publishers.php for an idea of how to extend ACM to suit your needs.

AdSense Manager

AdSense Manager was replaced by Advertising Manager, however that is no longer developed. In response to a number of queries I have updated my most recent version of the plugin to work with the latest WordPress and released it here. Unfortunately, if you upgraded to Advertising Manager you may need to reimport your ads.

AdSense Manager supports most Ad networks including AdBrite, AdRoll, Project Wonderful and plain old HTML code.

Ad Injection

Ad Injection from reviewmylife injects any kind of advert or other content (e.g. Google AdSense, Amazon Associates, ClickBank, TradeDoubler, etc) into the existing content of your WordPress posts and pages. You can control the number of adverts based on the post length, and it can restrict who sees adverts by post age, visitor referrer and IP address. Adverts can be configured in the post (random, top, and bottom positions) or in any widget/sidebar area. There's support for A:B split testing / ad rotation. And the dynamic restrictions (by IP and referrer) work with WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache and WP Cache.

Adsense Custom Placement

Well, this plugin was made specially to help people using wordpress insert adsense or any other advertisement in the wordpress blogs in whatever position[1] in whatever post[2] they wished.

[1] above and below content, above and below post titles [2] positions as in below post 2, above post 4, below post 5 whatever position does the blogger wish.

AdRotate

Get the most intuitive ad manager and start making money with your website. Add and manage the ads from the dashboard and show a random banner, or multiple, on your site. The plugin supports unlimited groups for banners allowing to tie certain banners to different areas of the website. Easy management from the dashboard allows you to quickly oversee, add and edit banner code or renew/delete and add new ads. Previewing of banners when editing them. And even some statistical values. Receive a periodic email when banners are (about to) expire(d) informing you to take action.

Advertwhirl Advertising Manager and Ad Rotator

Advertwhirl(pronounced Adver-Twirl) is the ultimate WordPress plugin to manage advertising campaigns for your site. Advertwhirl not only allows you to manage exactly how and when ads are displayed on your site but allows you to serve your ads to external sites and smartphone apps. Manage ads for your guest posts and get a return on your hard work. Incentivize your guest bloggers to create great content by giving them a share of their posts ad slots. Advertwhirl is being actively developed and supported by Mobile Sentience. Already the most comprehensive advertising manager for WordPress with true integration with Adsense, Groupon and others Advertwhirl is updated frequently with many exciting and new features to come.

WP125

If you've given up the low-paying and slightly obtrusive ad networks used by many new bloggers, in favor of selling ads directly, you may have been frustrated with the excessive time involved managing your ads. Not only do you have to find advertisers to sponsor your blog, you have to manually edit your template to put the ad in, and then head over to your favorite calendar app to set an alert to remind you when to take the ad down.

Time consuming practices like those are a thing of the past. The WP125 plugin can help you manage your ads more efficiently, leaving you with more time to write new posts. The plugin adds a new "Ads" menu to the WordPress admin, featuring submenus for tweaking display settings and adding and removing ads.

original article

Should You Pay for Social Media Marketing ?

 Social media marketing has changed the way that businesses advertise online. Many marketing departments now include a social media manager. Campaigns include updates and postings to social websites that drive customers towards products or services. The initial costs of entering into the social media marketing arena are very low. The ongoing cost of maintaining the campaign, however, can increase over time. There are several reasons why a business should invest in social media marketing.

Companies that communicate with customers through social media are able to engage in a very unique way. Existing and potential customers can feel as if the business is speaking on a very personal and informal level. The answers to questions like ‘what is the best credit card‘ will seem much more genuine when coming through interactions with a business through a social channel. The mechanism of social media also provides customers with a ready outlet to respond directly to the company.

The return on investment from social media marketing is usually positive. The underlying costs of maintaining a profile or website is generally very low. Marketing campaigns that overlap into the social realm are developed in tandem with existing marketing efforts so there is no added cost. People online might also tend to gravitate towards the social page of a business without any active marketing effort simply as a result of an experience with the company elsewhere.

The marketing content that is developed for a social media page can be of great value because it is persistent once it has been posted online. This type of reusable content has a higher return on investment than an email campaign that is sent out to customers once and then fades into the archives. Persistent content can also become important if a video, posting or image happens to spark a viral response. This can then draw attention to the business for no cost at all.

Advertising programs that are offered by social media companies can be far more effective than other types of traditional campaigns. The media company already has customers segmented by a number of different variables. A credit card company has a good chance of being able to target marketing efforts directly at users who have been looking for a business credit card offer. This type of marketing power is unique considering the low cost of entry into the field.

The importance of maintaining and promoting a social media presence online can be seen with search engine rankings. Cultivating a good relationship with customers can lead to a proliferation of links that can drive up the ranking of a business within search engines. Investing time and money in social media marketing will also inevitably benefit companies as new technologies and online services emerge in the future.

original article

How To Create a Custom Error 404 Page For WordPress

This article will guide you how to create an error 404 page for your WordPress powered site or blog. This guide will work for self-hosted blogs, not for free ones on WordPress.com like (xyz.wordpress.com) ! An error 404 page is when you try to access a page that does not exist.

What is the error 404?

The error 404 is a message shows up if you click on a link that doesn’t work (anymore) or if you typed wrong Url. This is default in WordPress but some themes don’t come with a 404.php file.

Basic Error 404 Template

If you do not have default 404.php page, you can create it. Create a 404.php file with the below code..

<?php get_header(); ?>

<?php get_sidebars('left'); ?>

<h2>Error 404 - Page Not Found.</h2>

<?php get_sidebars('right'); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

The above code would give a simple “Error 404 – Page Not Found.” as ouptput, which is mentioned within in h2 tag. You need to modify header, sidebar & footer as per your theme structure.

404 page with Search Form

Want to add search form to help users stick around instead of leaving. By this way visitors have the option of searching your site, even if lands on your 404 page. If you want to add search form for your 404 page, add the below code..

<?php get_header(); ?>

<?php get_sidebars('left'); ?>

<h2>Error 404 - Page Not Found.</h2>

<p>Search:</p>

<?php include(TEMPLATEPATH . "/searchform.php"); ?>

<?php get_sidebars('right'); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

404 page redirect to home page

If you want to just redirect 404 page to home page then add the below code in 404.php

<?php

header( 'HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently' );

header( 'Location: '.home_url( '/' ) );

?>

Make it more dynamic

If you want to create a more dynamic error 404 page you can use this way so that the visitor only sees the brief error and, then gets redirected to your home page. This page can be made to be somewhat SEO friendly. For this you need to edit the header.php file of your template. Within the meta tags at the top of your header.php file add the below code ..

header.php

<?php

if (is_404()) {

*$redirectHome = get_option('home'); ?>

<?php echo $redirectHome; ?>

After added it into header.php file, you need to edit your 404.php file to look like this:

404.php

<?php get_header(); ?>

<?php get_sidebars('left'); ?>

<h1>Error 404 - File Not Found.</h1>

<h3>Please <a href="<?php bloginfo('home' Or 'template_url'); ?>" Click here</a> to return home page, or you can wait to be redirected in 15 seconds.</h3>

<?php get_sidebars('right'); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

This above example will allow the user to land on your 404 error page and then automatically take them to the home page. This will also help users stick around instead of them being left confused and leaving your website. Please make sure to replace home or template url with the exact link where it should redirect.

original

Stop Blogger Blogs Redirection To Country Specific Domains

Most Bloggers knew that recently Google redirects blogger blogs their respective Country code TLD’s. Like if you are browsing a blog from Australia, it will be redirecting .com to .com.au domain. For instance, if you open xyz.blogspot.com in your browser, you will be redirected to xyz.blogspot.com.au if you are browsing from Australia.

Why Google redirects Blogger Blogs to Country Specific?

Google implemented this blogger blog redirection because of censorship on Internet and hide unwanted content. They started categorizing the content based on the writer & the reader’s country. A site with having unwanted contents, will be block in some countries but still have it displayed in the others.

Disadvantages of Country Specific Redirection

There are many problems with country specific domain redirection, from SEO to social share count, List of disadvantages ...

•  Social shares will be changed with country specific domains.If your blog xyz.blogspot.com has 5 tweets it will be changed with xyz. blogspot.com.au .
•  No of backlinks will be different for each of the country specific domains and your blog will lose alexa rankings.
•  It might problem with some applications and widgets.

How To Stop redirects Blogger Blogs to Country Specific?

You can stop this country specific redirection for your blogger blog by using a JavaScript code.  Once added this code in your template your blog will simply redirects blogspot.com instead of redirecting to the country-specific domain names.

Steps to place JavaScript code:

1. Log In to Blogger account and visit your dashboard

2. Click on design of your Blog

3. Click on Edit HTML

<script type="text/javascript">
var str= window.location.href.toString();
if ((str.indexOf('.com/'))=='-1') {
var str1=str.substring(str.lastIndexOf(".blogspot."));
if (str1.indexOf('/')=='-1') {
var str2=str1;
}
else {
var str2=str1.substring(0,str1.indexOf('/')+1);
}
window.location.href =window.location.href.toString().replace(str2,'.blogspot.com/ncr/');
}
</script>

4. Now copy the above code and search this line on your blogger template.

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

5.  Paste the java script code below that line and save your template.

Now your visitors from anywhere in the world can see your blogspot.com domain only.


original post>>

How To See If Someone UnFriend You On Facebook ?

Facebook, the popular social networking site, is a grand opportunity to get in touch with your old friends. Messages and notifications flow into your account every now and then. Whenever you are added as a friend, you get a notification. Logging into your Facebook account, you get to see an entire list of your friends added in your friend’s list. But what, when someone unfriends you from the list? When you are removed from anyone’s friend list, you are not notified nor does any message enter your account.

However, gone are those days when you remind in dark as to who unfriended you. Unfriend Finder – the new browser script enables you to find out who has eliminated you from his list. Not only about unfriend, this browser script will let you know  you the people to whom you have sent a friend request, the persons who have denied your request, the person who have removed you from the list and also about the Facebook user who has deactivated his account.

All the recent web browsers Opera Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and others support this new Unfriend Finder application. Are you wondering how this function will work for you? Well, this browser script makes use of Facebook notifications for alerting you of the aforesaid events.

Want to get this new app right on your PC now? Go to the site of Unfriend Finder and install this once you have downloaded. Once you have installed this browser script, it will store for you Facebook friend list, requests and other information in the web browser. Just as you receive notification when anybody sends you a friend request, in the like manner now you will also get a notification when you are unfriended in the same Facebook style.

Facebook interface and Unfriend Finder mixes perfectly with each other. Now, you will receive alerts whenever your friend request is ignored or rejected. Stop wondering why your list of Facebook friends getting shorter day by day. Set up Unfriend Finder and start receiving notifications regarding all events related to your Facebook friends!

How to Enable Facebook Timeline Now!

Facebook has finally unlocked the floodgates of “Open Graph” with its Timeline Apps. “Facebook Timeline” is the new feature offering you a leap from its persisting multimedia integration. Small and large developers can now submit their apps with Facebook. What does this mean? In essence, you are likely to see a new bunch of activities of your Facebook friends. You will now experience much more than the usual ‘likes’ you have been using all these days.

This popular social network has opened up new options to enhance your fun to an advanced stage. Shopping, ravel, fitness, food and more than 60 ‘lifestyle’ apps have made Facebook much more amazing than before. These apps enable you to share your activities and hobbies automatically. Potentially thousands of other apps are to come in Facebook in the recent past.

But how to know which apps are worth using in Facebook Timeline? Don’t fret! Some selective apps are provided to suit with the new Facebook Timeline feature. You do not have to waste any time or take the trouble of choosing the right app. Whether you admire knitting, hiking, gardening or snowboarding or any other activity, there is an app for all.

Greater details of your news, posts, activities from its initial stage to the current date will on feature now with this new Facebook app. Your settings, activities, photos and posts will get a new layout altogether. The best part is that all these astounding apps are totally free! Enjoy the stunning feature without shelling out a single penny! Install Facebook Timeline and give a new look to your Facebook profile. Grab the Timeline Feature right away!

Steps to do it:

• Log into Facebook.
• Visit Facebook Developer App to set off the app.
• Click Create a New App on the page’s top right corner.
• Give a name to your app, like Timeline and also a namespace, like Your name.
• Simply follow the onscreen instruction.
• Click on Open Graph link at the left side of the page and then click Get Started With Open Graph.
• Fill up the two blanks suiting your needs and then press the Get Started button.
• Several settings page will be displayed. You can make changes to the settings or keep to its default as you desire.
• Now go to the homepage of your Facebook. There you will find the activation at the top of the page reading “Introducing Timeline…..” Click on Get It Now and have fun with the new Facebook features.

original article>>

How Google Search Plus Your World is Changing SEO

In its simplest form, search engine optimization (SEO) used to be about three things - making your content crawlable, linkable, and usable. Gaining greater visibility on search engine results pages was relatively easy. Depending on your business model, it was also much easier said than done.

Nimble smaller businesses routinely outmaneuvered larger enterprises when it came to securing specific query-relevant rankings in the search engines, especially in Google. Ultimately, relevancy had to be redefined by shifting algorithmic weightings toward trust and authority, and away from feigned popularity and repurposed content.

Now, SEO needs to be as conversational as it is contextually relevant, in order to be well represented in Google's most recent algorithmic shifts. True to form, enterprise level SEO initiatives will have to play a game of catch-up this year in order to reap new opportunities from social search results.

Recent Developments

Google’s search results have been influenced by some measure of social signals for years. It’s only now that the social signals can wholly resonate through Google’s Search Plus Your World release earlier this month.

Google Plus Buttons made their debut in June last year. At the time, experts gave it a bit of a “so what” nod as yet another “me too” social experience. Recently Larry Page announced that 90 million users have signed up to Google Plus since launch. Those Plus buttons are growing in importance.

Google Search Plus Your World is the next evolutionary step in determining what is relevant to personalized search queries in that individuals search results are greatly influenced by their circles of friends.

In Google Search Plus Your World, your friends’ online experiences are more relevant to your personal search results than links and domain authority. This is a game changer from what we all knew and understood about perceived relevancy of public web search results. When you’re signed in to Google all you need do is toggle between the two very different, yet seemingly relevant, search results.

Presumably if you find that your personalized search results in Google Search Plus Your World lack relevancy, you be well advised to start finding some new friends. Not to worry. Google’s been thinking about that too.

Last week Google rolled out yet another new feature for Google Plus that lets searchers start a conversation directly from search results, and contribute to the relevant conversation by way of the Google Plus stream.

It’s not only easier to find people, personalities and pages in Google Plus personalized search results, you can readily expand your circle of influence by adding these people to your circle of friends – and vice versa. All you need do is find the “share box” in your search results and you'll be presented with an opportunity to "join the discussion" about whatever you've searched for.

In Google Search Plus Your World, there is no search without social. Your search queries resonate social signals through personalized search.

Better be careful for what you search for. Oh, snap! That’s right. No one will know what search phrase you used, except you and Google, because your Search Plus Your World results are hidden behind https:// and no keywords will be linked to your search in any analytics programs.

Points to Ponder

While Google Search Plus Your World evolves into a centralized social hub of activity that connects search results with social functions, we must be cognizant of the fact that the search engine will likely be testing algorithms that introduce weighted social search signals into Google's public web search results.

Google search has historically been about finding the best results for the many. Google Search Plus Your World is about finding the best results for you. Now, “you” are the enterprise. That is to say, each individual that uses Google Plus represents a new opportunity to have digital content produced by or about your enterprise discovered and shared among immeasurable circles of friends.

SEO in 2012, be it public or personal, is all about providing content that is worthy of being shared, by links or by circles. Now that the context of the search query is the conversation, relevancy is truly in the eye of the beholder … as long as the people or the publication is beholden to Google+.

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10 Google Algorithm Changes That Affect Your Ranking

Matt Cutts written Google makes about 500 changes to its search algorithm every year. This summer Google published a video that gives a glimpse into their overall process, and on 14th Nov they shared a flavor of specific algorithm changes by publishing a highlight list of many of the improvements made over the past couple weeks. List of ten improvements from the past couple weeks by Google:

•  Cross-language information retrieval updates: For queries in languages where limited web content is available (Afrikaans, Malay, Slovak, Swahili, Hindi, Norwegian, Serbian, Catalan, Maltese, Macedonian, Albanian, Slovenian, Welsh, Icelandic), we will now translate relevant English web pages and display the translated titles directly below the English titles in the search results. This feature was available previously in Korean, but only at the bottom of the page. Clicking on the translated titles will take you to pages translated from English into the query language. 
•  Snippets with more page content and less header/menu content: This change helps us choose more relevant text to use in snippets. As we improve our understanding of web page structure, we are now more likely to pick text from the actual page content, and less likely to use text that is part of a header or menu.
•  Better page titles in search results by de-duplicating boilerplate anchors: We look at a number of signals when generating a page’s title. One signal is the anchor text in links pointing to the page. We found that boilerplate links with duplicated anchor text are not as relevant, so we are putting less emphasis on these. The result is more relevant titles that are specific to the page’s content.
•  Length-based autocomplete predictions in Russian: This improvement reduces the number of long, sometimes arbitrary query predictions in Russian. We will not make predictions that are very long in comparison either to the partial query or to the other predictions for that partial query. This is already our practice in English.
•  Extending application rich snippets: We recently announced rich snippets for applications. This enables people who are searching for software applications to see details, like cost and user reviews, within their search results. This change extends the coverage of application rich snippets, so they will be available more often.
•  Retiring a signal in Image search: As the web evolves, we often revisit signals that we launched in the past that no longer appear to have a significant impact. In this case, we decided to retire a signal in Image Search related to images that had references from multiple documents on the web.
•  Fresher, more recent results: As we announced just over a week ago, we’ve made a significant improvement to how we rank fresh content. This change impacts roughly 35 percent of total searches (around 6-10% of search results to a noticeable degree) and better determines the appropriate level of freshness for a given query.
•  Refining official page detection: We try hard to give our users the most relevant and authoritative results. With this change, we adjusted how we attempt to determine which pages are official. This will tend to rank official websites even higher in our ranking.
•  Improvements to date-restricted queries: We changed how we handle result freshness for queries where a user has chosen a specific date range. This helps ensure that users get the results that are most relevant for the date range that they specify.
•   Prediction fix for IME queries: This change improves how Autocomplete handles IME queries (queries which contain non-Latin characters). Autocomplete was previously storing the intermediate keystrokes needed to type each character, which would sometimes result in gibberish predictions for Hebrew, Russian and Arabic.